


There is no darkness.

by queentangerine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10x23, Alternate Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3994324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queentangerine/pseuds/queentangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[How 10x23 could have been a perfect series ending]</p>
<p>Because it has to end with both of the brothers simultaneously and irrevocably dead, at the end of the line. Sam’s death at the hand of Dean, and Dean's death essentially at his own, just to stop himself. With Death looking on, because Death is the only constant in this eternity. Death comes for us all, eventually, and only the lucky few get to choose their own time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is no darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> I have very specific feelings on how I think the series should end, and they almost hit it perfectly with the season 10 finale, except, of course, the show must go on...  
> But here's my quick ramblings on how it could have gone.

Because it has to end with both of the brothers simultaneously and irrevocably dead, at the end of the line. Sam’s death at the hand of Dean, coerced by the Mark of Cain (only not as much as they would have you believe). And Dean's death essentially at his own, just to stop himself. With Death looking on, because Death is the only constant in this eternity. Death comes for us all, eventually, and only the lucky few get to choose their own time. 

For the Winchester brothers, lucky is a relative term, and the end cannot be denied.

It’s perfect, it’s devastating, it couldn’t be more wrong. But they talk it out, spitting words and burning accusations, and at long last they accept that they kind of are monsters, in their own right. Even if their intentions were (mostly) pure they made some bad choices. Wandering the roads masquerading as heroes, because maybe they’ve saved a few lives, but how many have they ended? There’s no tally because the numbers would leave them weeping, too weak to lift themselves above the rubble.

They’ve killed _gods_  in their time. When the glory days have ended. Gods once revered by millions, thousands, until their irrelevancy could no longer be ignored. Forgotten gods calling out for the attention they’ve been denied, voices screaming down empty halls and met with nothing but corpses and echoes of their own desperation. _I just want to be loved_. _I just want to be remembered._

Fear of oblivion. Fear of failure.

Is that what the brothers have become? They’ve tried saving the world, tried carrying that weight on their shoulders, but it’s so much bigger than them. It’s a war they can’t win, in the grand scheme, because there is no end game. But there is this fight, this _one last fight_ , right here right now that they can end, once and for all. The permanent banishment of some proverbial darkness. They've never heard if it before. It doesn't matter.

Dean has to go. Time to say goodbye and mean it this time. He really does mean it, so tired of all of it.

And Sam _could_  go on living his life, agreeing that he won’t do anything stupid but we all know he wouldn’t last long. Either he’d give in, or he’d just be too unhappy on his own, lost without family, without his brother. But whatever the reason, it wouldn’t last. He wouldn’t last. And so it’s okay. 

They started this damned journey together and they will end it _together_. Because they have no choice, and also because it’s just too hard and too foolish to keep going on like this. Because it just _keeps going_. One evil after another, and it’s always been there and always will be. It was never up to them to save everyone, but somewhere along the way they became convinced it was. 

(Except that it was always going to be them. They were always supposed to end up here or somewhere like here. The lineage of Cain and Abel. Micheal and Lucifer. That goddamn apocalyptic script.)

They saved the world once. Twice maybe. They’ve left a legacy and they’ll leave just one more, and it’s okay that no one will know.

But Cas will know. Castiel  _endures_. He’s been around for millennia, he’s watched infinite lives be led and watched the world grow from nothing in the darkness to a world where the lights never go out completely, no more fear of a dying fire. Oh my how they’ve grown. And he’ll be there through it all to come and the thought is daunting, it’s terrifying (for the first time), and it’s so immensely immeasurable. _Forever._

That’s where Dean will be, stuck in a loop. But he’s been to hell before and it’s much the same beast, if a different form, another life. It really does feel like that was another life. Time is such a strange thing.

It doesn't really hit Dean until he has Death’s scythe in his hands, Sam kneeling and begging at his feet. Doesn't hit him that this really is the only choice. Such a habit to look for a way out. He doesn't know until he's in the thick of it that he is actually going through with this mad plan.

But after all, why wouldn’t he?

He and Sam make their peace, at least as much as they were ever going to. They make their apologies and say their goodbyes, but there’s just one missing, which he rights in the form of a prayer. ( _To our loved ones who can’t be with us today.)_

_Castiel. It all happened so fast. I’m so sorry, Cas, for all the things I’ve done. And I want you to know, I_ need _you to know I…_ (He can’t.)  _I know you think you failed me, but you saved me, in so many ways._  

And Cas feels the words (and those left unsaid) reverberating around his vessel's skull, all the way from where he is with all those miles between them, so far away. Why is he so far away? Dean is off making his own personal brand of peace while the rest of them make deals with devils. With dastardly kings. With the heart of all things evil. All in the name of good, but only if they turn a blind eye.

He feels the plea the second that Dean makes the decision, the second that he starts to swing, Cas leaves the squabbling evil in front of him (they don't matter anymore, nothing matters anymore) and flies to his side. All he’s granted is a mere fleeting, desperate glance from his clandestine beloved before the bomb goes off. 

To remember that face, to hold with him, always. 

It’s only seconds since the scythe fell. Seconds since Death snapped his fingers and sent Dean to the edge of the universe, the edge of reality. It's really over. Cas can feel it, in that he feels  _nothing_. 

The bond that tied him to Dean snapped like a thousand year old thread in the instant he disappeared. 

He stands in the wake of the aftershock for a year. Three years. He loses count. He can’t move. Can’t bring himself to blink. But time changes the world around him and he can only watch. 

And that’s the thing, the _point_  of it all, the very reason for the sacrifice. 

_It goes on._

But it’s better this way, if only just. He never wanted to be forced to watch Dean descend into the madness, the darkness, but he didn’t want to have to watch a world without him either.

It’s better this way, if only by the smallest fraction of a percent, and Cas spends far too much time breaking down the atoms in that margin, ever smaller as the clock ticks upwards towards infinity.  

Whoever thought _forever_ was a good idea was sorely mistaken.

Because forever is cruel. Forever is unforgiving. And an overwhelming majority of all that is must end. 

Castiel walks the world like it’s a chore. Because he should, because he has work to do and messes to clean. Because he doesn’t know what else to do. It was once his job, and then after the Winchesters it became his privilege. But he isn’t so sure where he stands anymore, the world seems bleak without them, their mission, so he just keeps moving. 

He’s had forever at his fingertips for so long that this brief stint with the rebellious brothers should have meant nothing. Oh, how he was wrong.

Life is as it was, more or less. Heaven reaches compromise, more or less. Hell is orderly for what it is, more or less.

Nothing radically changes, but enough does, that the cycle of impending doom ends, giving way to only the minor crises that have always plagued the earth, always will.

Castiel finds peace (or its neighbor) eventually, another side effect of forever. It inevitably forgets. 

But some things, some _people_ , shine too bright to be forgotten entirely. 

Castiel walks the earth, and even at the darkest summit of night, electricity hums through wires and lights the globe, some godforsaken rock hurdling through space, and he’s waiting for the day it decides to throw him off. But for now it grants him quarter.

The earth glows in the darkness and he hopes that Dean can see it from wherever he is. Hopes that Sam can see it too, from heaven. Hopes that they're reminded that they're responsible for the world’s perseverance. They saved them all one last time (too many times for anyone to have to suffer). 

Cas just wants them to know that for now, at least, there is no darkness, only light. 


End file.
